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Love Baseball but Hate the Unwashed Masses? The Giants Have Just the Ticket for You

Scott Lucas | Photo: Courtesy Jim Sugar | February 7, 2014

It's like the Battery, but with crowd noise.

Don't worry. You won't be anywhere near these people.

Do you, like Kevin Costner in Bull Durham, believe in the soul, the cock, the pussy, the small of a woman's back, the hanging curve ball, high fiber, good scotch, that the novels of Susan Sontag are self-indulgent, overrated crap? Oh, and also that the unwashed masses ought to know their place? Well then, welcome to AT&T Park!

The San Francisco Giants are taking a cue from back in vogue private clubs like the Battery by opening the Gotham Club, a $1,250 per year members only affair at the ballpark. In fact, it's not just one private club: It's three—the Game Room, the Bullpen, and the Clubhouse. The Game Room is a special section in the suite level that houses pool tables, a bowling alley (because nothing says a sunny day at the ballpark like bowling?), and a bar. The Bullpen will be a section of seats along the right field warning track. But for the maximum Larry Ellison treatment, you can't beat the Clubhouse—which is literally built right next to the free viewing area just outside the right field wall. Instead of what we can only guess are homeless urchins, Marxists, and swarthy Italians that make up the knothole gang, members of the Gotham Club have access to a private section built into the out-of-town scoreboard in the right field wall. It even has its own private staircase for access, meaning you won't even have to pretend that you don't share the ballpark with the hoi polloi—because you literally won't.

All told, it's like the Battery Club, but, you know, with people. It's like the Bohemian Grove, but without Donald Rumsfeld trying to convince you to bomb the Azore Islands just for the practice. It's like the Tonga Room without Mitt Romney. It's perfect.